Santa sangre (1989)

A former circus artist escapes from a mental hospital to rejoin his armless mother - the leader of a strange religious cult - and is forced to enact brutal murders in her name as he becomes "her arms".

Director:

Alejandro Jodorowsky

Writers:

Alejandro Jodorowsky (story), Roberto Leoni (story)

Stars:

Axel Jodorowsky, Blanca Guerra, Guy Stockwell

1 win & 8 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Axel Jodorowsky	...	Fenix
Blanca Guerra	...	Concha
Guy Stockwell	...	Orgo
Thelma Tixou	...	The Tattooed Woman
Sabrina Dennison	...	Alma
Adan Jodorowsky	...	Young Fenix
Faviola Elenka Tapia	...	Young Alma
Teo Jodorowsky	...	Pimp
Mary Aranza	...	Fat Prostitute (as Ma. De Jesus Aranzabal)
Jesús Juárez	...	Aladin (as Jesus Juarez)
Sergio Bustamante	...	Monsignor
Gloriella	...	Rubi (as Gloria Contreras)
S. Rodriguez	...	The Saint
Zonia Rangel Mora	...	Trini
Joaquín García Vargas	...	Box-office Attendant (as Borolas)

Storyline

A young man -- starving, nearly catatonic and barely responsive -- is confined in a sanitarium. He is taken on a field trip along with other residents to the city's red-light district. There, he encounters by chance a woman from his past, triggering a series of flashbacks. We see that he was traumatized as a child, when he and his family were circus performers, and when he witnessed a murder/suicide: his father -- an American expatriate living in Mexico under suspicious circumstances -- cuts off the arms of his beloved mother, a possessive wife and religious fanatic who led a heretical church called "Santa Sangre (Holy Blood)," the members of which worshipped a martyred girl whose arms were severed by her father following her rape, and then commit suicide. Back in the present, buttressed by shock of his remembrance, he escapes the sanitarium and, in a series of hallucinations and dream-fulfillments, believes he has rejoined his armless mother. He "becomes her arms" and the "two" ...

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Plot Keywords:

circus | surrealism | blood | violence against a child | sulphuric acid | 

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Taglines:

Forget Everything You Have Ever Seen

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Genres:

Drama | Fantasy | Horror | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated NC-17 for several scenes of extremely explicit violence

Details

Country:

Italy Mexico

Language:

English

Release Date:

27 June 1990 (USA)

Also Known As:

Santa Sangre

Filming Locations:

Estudios Churubusco Azteca, Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico

Box Office

Budget:

$787,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Produzioni Intersound, Productora Fílmica Real

Technical Specs

Runtime:

123 min 120 min (cut)

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film is included on Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" list.

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Goofs

When the elephant is dying, all the close-ups of its trunk bleeding show the trunk to be clean. All the long shots of the elephant show it's trunk covered in blood.

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Quotes

[first lines]
[Fenix crouches naked atop a tree trunk in his barren asylum room]
Doctor: [enters along with orderlies pushing a food cart] Fenix. Please...
[offers him a normal meal]
Doctor: Eat like a human being.
[pause]
Doctor: [puts the tray back down and offers him a raw fish]
Fenix: [howls]
[jumps down and grabs the fish]
Fenix: Grr!
[...]

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Crazy Credits

[over the final freeze-frame] I stretch out my hands to thee: my soul thirsts for thee like a parched land ... Teach me the way I should go, for to thee I lift up my soul. - Psalms 143.6, 8

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Connections

Featured in Jonathan Ross Presents for One Week Only: Alejandro Jodorowsky (1991)

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Soundtracks

Cucurrucucu paloma
Composed by Tomás Méndez

User Reviews

a masterpiece, indeed

This is a startling work, a truly artistic masterpiece, which did achieve some mainstream recognition for Jodorowoski but not what the film deserved. Filled with unsettling images, grotesque displays of violence and sexuality, and subtle but comic references, Santa Sangre is Jodorowoski's most coherent work. It is also a thoroughly artistic work, with a greater emphasis on representation than drama or morality. If you have not seen this movie, rent it. You will not soon forget it whatever your final evaluation might be. Too bad its not available on DVD (hint).